The present invention relates to an IR (infra-red) transmitter with integral magnetic-stripe card reader and method therefor and, in addition, a compatible IR receiver and display for use in an interactive environment, such as, for example, in a hotel room casino environment, with a cable TV home shopping network wherein a user communicates with the home shopping network from his or her home, an off track betting (OTB) environment, or any other financial transaction interactive environment having interactive communication capability, such as the world wide web.
Commercial reception to interactive environments is greatly increasing at the present time, particularly with respect to financial transaction interactive environments utilizing a magnetic stripe card such a credit card, ATM card, debit card, and other similar type cards. The magnetic stripe embedded on such a financial type of card contains credit line information from a financial institution for a particular user, together with other identifying information about the user.
As an example, in a cable TV home shopping network, a user must somehow provide credit information from a credit card so as to be able to purchase an item from the home shopping network. In another environment, a user who wishes to participate in off track betting (OTB) race track environment must generally have pre-established a credit limit in order to place wagers with the particular race track location.
It would therefore be very desirable to provide a more accurate and faster means and method of permitting a user to directly participate in the interactive environments such as described above.